The Lietuvininkai Dialect School is a cycle of educational lessons aimed at ensuring that the Lietuvininkai dialect becomes living heritage by strengthening the identity of the ethnographic Minor Lithuania region. This region suffered severe demographic losses during World War II, when many residents experienced genocide or were forced to emigrate. The process most strongly affected the local Lietuvininkai (known in linguistics as the Western Samogitian) dialect, which the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage defines as one of the forms of intangible cultural heritage protected by the state.
For those living in the ethnographic territory of Minor Lithuania, it is especially important whether the dialect remains merely heritage (the number of people speaking the Lietuvininkai dialect decreases every year: 104 in 2012, 96 in 2014, and currently about 70), or becomes a living tradition. A significant achievement was reached in 2023, when the transmission of the Lietuvininkai dialect was included in the Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage Values being developed by the Lithuanian National Cultural Centre as a national value titled “Revitalization of the Lietuvininkai (Šišioniškiai) Dialect: School and Other Activities.”
Let’s meet at the Lietuvininkai Dialect School starting in March.